


I Told You Dog

by Deerman3



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e067 [Best Of?], M/M, Memory Related, The Desert Otherworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7362259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deerman3/pseuds/Deerman3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Carlos and Cecil's vacation in the desert overworld, including relaxing by the pool, listening to the radio, and taking a dip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Told You Dog

Carlos's phone buzzed. "Oh, honey, you're on."

"No I'm not, I'm right here." Cecil said. He was on vacation. They were sitting together by the pool, which, like the roller-coaster, had a deadly flaw. It's safe to just sit around with drinks, though. It's the water in the pool that does you in, Carlos had assured.

The pool was beautiful, like a lethal temptress. Deep turquoise, with azure tiles lining around the deep basin, with a flat, smooth water fall spouting from the jacuzzi overlooking the pool and beach chairs. The marble around the pool and under their chairs was shiny, with lots of layers and swirls of black, white, sand, dark sand, and flecks of gold or pyrite.

"Oh yeah..." Carlos said, unlocking his phone and swiping through his home-screens.

Cecil caught the clock on Carlos's phone, set with Bluetooth to sync to the clock-tower. "You set the alarm right on the nose?" Cecil whined.

"Yeah, I always like to skip the first two minutes of it." Carlos said. "Sorry..."

"Carlos the first two minutes are how the radio station survives, practically. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine as long as you're the only one who skips them."

"I'm the only one streaming them, everyone else has to use a real radio. Want to listen?"

"Sure. I wonder who's on."

It was Leonard Burton, with clips from the best of Cecil's work in radio.

When it was over, Carlos grinned at Cecil. Cecil laughed at him. Good old Leonard, giving that kind of impression of Cecil just by the tapes he decided to pick. He couldn't help it, he mostly was laughing at at Leonard, not really at Carlos at all, it was this whole situation that seemed funny. Carlos spared him a few laughs then stared at him.

Cecil laughed until he stopped making noise, until tears gathered at the corner of his eyes.

"Oh..." Cecil sighed. "Oh, I don't remember any of that. Hee heeheeheheheh,"

"Oh." Carlos said quietly. He'd been hoping vainly that Cecil would say anything other than that. He didn't know what to say. 'Hey!' He could say, 'At least you remember when you went to Europe.' Which he did, as evidenced by the story he'd told Carlos about it being almost the same as the one he'd told in 2012. The only difference between them was Cecil skipped over the bits about rolling down the hill all night with his companions.

When the tape ejected, Carlos's phone spat its battery out and it landed in the pool. "Oh crap."

"Carlos, no," Cecil murmured when Carlos handed him his drink. Cecil put it down and watched him.

"Don't worry," Carlos jogged around the pool to the stairs. His phone, uh, probably needed a battery?? Who really knows? He wanted to grab it just to be sure. "It's not really 'that bad'." Carlos finger quoted the mystery of the doom pool. He made it to the second step before he realized it was kind of cold.

Cecil stirred his drink from the edge of his seat, while Carlos tried to get in that pool. His worry for him soon melted a little because it was kind of funny watching him try to get in the cool water. Wow, look how flat Carlos could get his stomach when he was trying not to get wet. He looked just like a life guard. And then he got in up to his chest and looked like a scientist again, which is a better look on him.

When he dove under his shadow made the surface ripple.

"Is it..." Cecil said, after Carlos had come up and gone back down several times.

"I can't see it." Carlos whined dramatically, diving under again.

Then he found it and everything was fine.

As he stepped out, his phone rang. "Who is it?" Carlos asked, waddling back to the chairs.

Cecil looked at it. "Who's The Sauce Man."

"Oh! I told him I wouldn't be working this week. I knew he'd go and call me anyway." Carlos sighed a growly sigh and wiped the pool water off his hand onto Cecil's swim trunks, so thanks. He declined the sauce man and started jabbing off a text. Then he sighed like well there ya go sauce man, you're gonna be calling me all night.

That sauce man. And his sauce. Probably.

Carlos was two steps from his chair. Under him was puddle of water he'd made standing there with his phone. His foot caught on the glossy marble and slipped. The man had only one place to go--over the edge of the pool.

And he started laughing because, yup, they'd, well they'd just accidentally build a very pretty pool made of slippery, unsalted marble. Hard to actually commit to getting out of. Cecil stood up like, dude, are you good??? "Carlos!"

Carlos was way good, dude. "It's fine. That's the,"

Cecil was like, hey, let me, help you out, here, swim back over here, let me just slip on your puddle and fall head first into the deep end.

"No don't do... that,"

Cecil popped back up with a dramatic gasp and Carlos stared at him, expecting to see snot and hear coughing. Well, it turned out, Cecil could swim, probably better than some people. So that's some good news.

They smiled at each other, and probably laughed too.

"Yeah," Carlos said. "That's the thing, it's hard to get out once you got in."

  
\---

"Red! Blue! Pink! Red! Yellow! Orange!"

Cecil turned on his heel and slipped right into the pool, but Carlos was already halfway to the other end.

  
\---

"Marco."  
  
"Polo."  
  
"Marco."  
  
"Polo."  
  
"Marco."  
  
"Polo. Cheater! Close that."  
  
Cecil snickered and closed his fifth eye.  
  
  
\---  
  
"Let's get out, I'm getting kind of hungry." Cecil said.  
  
"Oh, okay." Carlos said, immediately sensing Cecil was up to something by the trouble he had keeping his smile as a flat line.  
  
They got out and, step by step, made it to their chairs.  
  
"Oh, what's that??" Cecil pointed at the pool.  
  
"That's your glasses! I knew you looked weird."  
  
"No," Cecil said, "That."  
  
Carlos peered into the water. I mean, scientifically speaking there's all kinds of things in the pool. Hydrogen, chlorine, muriatic acid. Cecil peered in too, setting his palm flat on Carlos's back. Yeah, that's as much as Carlos thought. "It would be easier to look at whatever it is if someone just pushed me into the pool." He said.  
  
"Is that ssss," Cecil took a step back to get better leverage on Carlos, but slipped and made an impressive splash.  
  
"Wow, I see it now! It's you!" Carlos jumped in. "And now it's also me!"  
  
"See I have good eyes even without my glasses." Cecil kissed him on the side of mouth.  
  
"Oh, are you sure?" Carlos kissed back on his actual lips.  
  
  
\---  
  
"Okay, time to get out, for real." Carlos said, noticing Cecil staring at his own reflection with dead eyes. "One at a time. Stay calm." Carlos pushed him towards the steps. The hand on his shoulder brought Cecil back to earth.  
  
"Right. Rocks can sense fear." Cecil remembered, patting the edge of the pool.  
  
"That's what makes rocks so rewarding to study and bond with."  
  
"And what makes them dangerous and illegal to study."  
  
They made it out and wandered down the path.  
  
  
\---  
  
"It's super weird that I don't remember anything." Cecil said quietly on the ride back to Carlos's place.  
  
"Yeah it is." Carlos said. He wanted to ask Cecil if he was okay, but he knew he wasn't.  
  
"If we ever go swimming again we should bring a bottle of champagne, because that 30's stuff sounded fun." Cecil said.  
  
"Yeah. We can do that." Carlos said.  
  
He didn't want to seem cold about the tapes, he just...  
  
Mnh.  
  
You know, Cecil had told him that Dr. Kayali had called. Had told him what happened in the helicopter. Had said, decades. Carlos sighed. Maybe he couldn't imagine Cecil's feelings because he hadn't yet imagined any for himself. One explanation for the decades was just that time in Night Vale was weird, but was it really fair to take decades of Carlos's life without aging him more than a few years? Science is always fair, it gives and it takes away, and everything is conserved. The other explanation was what Carlos had wandered around the earth for years learning, but didn't remember. Vignettes of Carlos's life throughout the decades, a moment here with Tesla, a moment there with, um, nuclear winter? Okay, so it was probably the first hypothesis.  
  
"It's so unfair," Carlos said.  
  
Cecil sighed.  
  
"At least we have the future."


End file.
